Democracy 3 is a political simulator that places you in the role of either a Prime Minister, President or some other type of political figure. As a political leader, you must face numerous hurdles such as alcohol taxes, income taxes, and military spending, to name just a few. You are given the opportunity to govern six different countries – the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany and France.

Each country comes with its own agenda and problems that must be solved. It’s up to the player to decide which direction their country will take. Democracy 3’s gameplay is in-depth and at times very frustrating. Since the issues you deal with are ‘hot button topics’, you must be careful when making decisions or it can end is disater.

The decisions you make have a cause and effect; it’s not possible to please a political party and satisfy the voters at the same time. Democracy 3 deals with real-life issues that give you a greater understanding of what your government actually goes through on a daily basis, especially when you’re confronted by decisions that are difficult to make.

When starting a new campaign, you can choose your difficulty level, innate socialism and how many terms to run during your campaign. There is also an option to adjust your opponent’s aggressiveness and point of views, including their political apathy and innate liberalism, among others. The game includes 30 different preset names to call your campaign. Theses names are used to identify your campaign and your opponent’s as well. If you would rather not use the available preset names, there is an option to rename your party.

Democracy 3 gives you complete control over your campaign; there is nothing you cannot customize, approve or summit in the law as President. You are even given the authority to hire and fire cabinet members throughout the course of your term. Having a strong cabinet is vital to winning elections and passing additional bills that you want to be law.

Strategy plays a major role in Democracy’s gameplay. Even though the gameplay is rich with content and very engaging, most of your time is spent staring at statistics and making executive decisions that will not only affect your life, but the citizens of your country. A tremendous amount of effort goes into making decisions (especially major ones), and it doesn’t matter whether these decisions are meant for personal gain or to help your citizens.

With the recently released “Social Engineering” DLC, playing as the President has become more difficult. The Social Engineering expansion adds a new level of gaming to Democracy 3 by introducing 8 new dilemmas and over 30 new policies that can be incorporated into law.

The new dilemmas and policies included with the DLC can be accessed immediately when you start a new campaign; it doesn’t matter what country you choose either. Among the new policies is Needle Exchange and Carpooling, to name just a few. Incorporating any of these new policies can have an adverse affect on both your economy and GDP. Knowing when to implement a new policy can mean the difference between a successful integration and an all-out catastrophe.

Democracy 3’s gameplay uses a turn-based system. During each turn, you are given a set amount of political capital that can be spent. After you have dispensed all of your political capital, you must end your turn in order to accumulate more political capital. This political capital is what you use to submit policies and make changes to existing policies.

The amount of policies that you have to juggle can be overwhelming at times. Figuring out which policy is the most important one to fund verses the policies that should be cut can be confusing. Plus, you can’t rely on the same policies working for your campaign if you decide to start a new campaign. This is what makes Democracy 3 an engaging game – the enjoyment of playing a new campaign and having to use new strategies and policies to succeed.

You know you have accomplished something when you have survived four terms. What could possibly go wrong? Many things can happen during your first few terms of your Presidential campaign, and these include, but are not limited to: fanatical groups rising and militias opposing your decisions. And if you make too many bad decisions, the aforementioned groups will attempt to assassinate you. This doesn’t mean that every assassination attempt will be successful, but if the situation goes unresolved for too long, your time in office will be very short.

Democracy 3 is an advanced simulator that gives you an excessive amount of content to juggle, and it doesn’t allow you to focus on one particular issue for too long. This is understandable because running a government is no easy task. The game comes with a lengthy tutorial that all gamers should use before attempting to play Democracy 3. The tutorial will give you the basic knowledge needed to start your first term in office. Even though Democracy comes with a steep learning curve, the tutorial does help to soften the blow.

Democracy 3 is a truly diverged and intellectual simulator that comes complete with a module section. This feature allows you to integrate your own mods. Steam already has a Workshop section where players are already submitting their own creations. Some of the player mods already include Israel, Russia and even South Korea as additional countries. With all the customization options these modules bring to Democracy 3, the replay value is almost endless.

The only downside to Democracy 3 is the amount of reading required to play. Adding cutscenes or even localized narration would have helped, but it’s certainly not a necessity; it really boils down to personal opinion.

Democracy 3 is a fantastic game. It brings more to the table with its recent “Social Engineering” expansion pack than any of its predecessors. Moreover, you are guaranteed to get hundreds of hours of gameplay. With political simulators being far and few between, Democracy 3 is the best choice for any gamer looking to have their life taken over by politics.

James ‘Daripper’ PittaroPlatform:PC (Available on Steam /Also Available on MAC)